Chopped Liver – Ghost Town

There are great ideas. There are best intentions… and there is simply misguided optimism.

Today I attended a meeting of the latter.

In truth it contained best intentions too, so let me explain.

The meeting was with a select group of local businesspeople, councillors, police community officers and me. The idea was to think up a strategy to bring more people into the town High Street.

But the thing is, people do what people want to do. If there was a reason to come to the High Street then people would go to the High Sreet.

The problem is a massive white elephant in the middle of the town – it’s called an indoor shopping centre. It is warm. It has shops in it where people can buy things. The high street is freezing cold half the year, and is full of restaurants, banks, estate agents and the like – in short, shops where you cant buy “things”.

So, at the meeting, there were suggestions ranging from erecting little coloured lights to school choirs in the street. Except that there is nowhere in the street to hold such an event without endangering the lives of the attendeed (assuming there are any).

So, rather than appearing negative for the sake of it, what is the solution? I don’t know is the short answer.

The longer answer is that people will shop where the shops are, especially if it’s warm, and shopping centres the world over have changed the landscape of our town centres. Shopkeepers will only rent shops only where the customers are.